I organize all of my blog photos in folders by year, and then by month, and then by day. In looking through November's this morning, I don't think there is any other month that starts as much in one season and ends as much in another. I love winter. I feel like I come alive, somehow. Winter, winter: Bare branches. Pink skies. Muddy streets. Evergreen scents. Misty rain. Cold mornings. Smoke from neighborhood chimneys. Kitchen afternoons. Fogged up windowpanes. Mimi takes a bunch of miniature fake pine trees and and sets them up in her room next to her mushroom nightlight. She fluffs up her bed, all flannel sheets and gingham comforter and quilt after quilt, and climbs in. "Mom, look at me." I open the back door in the darkness of early morning and sniff the chilly air. Delicious shiver. Hot coffee. Winter. I am a daughter of the North Wind.

I hope you are well. Thanksgiving was lovely. The whole past weekend was so wonderfully long. I kept getting my days messed up, forgetting where we were in the long stretch. We made the house a bit Christmassy on Saturday and Sunday and then I spent as much time as I could hand-stitching a whole bunch of felt ornaments for Amelia's little tree that we usually put upstairs in the big bedroom. I used so many different patterns (all other peoples' patterns) and they all came out so cute and I had so much fun doing it it was ridiculous. I will take pictures of them and show you next time. We haven't gotten our trees yet.

Fabric for the rest of the kits is supposedly on the UPS truck right now, coming to our house by the end of the day. Stacey just left after having pulled all of the floss. I'll pick up the patterns on my way to get Mimi at school. We are sure we can get everything out by the end of the week, so thank you again for all of those (new) orders. Love and Joy is sold out, and we won't be doing more. We've held out fifteen kits, as we always do, for emergencies and lost packages and all that sort of thing and once we have confirmed that everyone who ordered has received their kit we will trickle them back out onto the web site but for all intents and purposes, the kits are all sold and I thank you so much for that. Thank you.

Do you remember the Alice dress? That was 2010. I know. Dear me. All of it. This girl. And that lovely creature peeking out from behind her mother's elbow up there is my beautiful niece, who just turned eighteen. whole. years. old. this month. I recently found that painting (it started here, went wrong here, recovered here, and ended up here) I did of her in 2009 and gave it to her just this weekend for her birthday. Oh, time.

Thank you, thank you for all of your orders and enthusiasm for the Love and Joy kit.I was just not expecting that.We sold out in a couple of days.Then we raided all of the Winterwoods kits for their fabric and made some more Love and Joys.And then we sold out of those. :(

BUT!

The fabric supplier is shipping more fabric to us today. I've put another 100 kits in the shop, as we have just enough floss to make 100 more.If you missed out the first time, here is your chance to order.

If you already purchased the digital pattern but you would like a kit instead, I will refund the cost of the digital pattern (because you will get a printed pattern with the kit).Please leave me a note on the order page (not the Paypal page) or send me an email and let me know to refund for the pattern and I will do that.

I'm sorry for the frustration! We try to guesstimate these numbers as well as we can so that things sell quickly but not too quickly, but it is hard with some things.

I will be writing to everyone who sent me an email about this or left a comment. I'm rushing around trying to get lots done today.

Sorry for writing in centered-speak. I thought it was kinda cute.

* * *

I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving, and a peaceful time of cooking and gathering together. Thank you all for paying such loving attention to all of our daily comings and goings and for being such bright lights in my life. I am very grateful for you and your kindness, and all of your kind words and support throughout these many years. I truly appreciate the efforts you make to share yourselves here. You are the nicest people ever.Thank you.

Love,Aliciaand Andy and Amelia and Clover Meadow and The BeeeeeeeeXOXOXOX

Stitching is just plain good medicine. Put on your coziest clothes, turn on the twinkly lights, make some tea, find a good movie or your favorite music, get a full-spectrum spotlight (that's the one I have) for those dark nights, call your puppers or your kitters or your friend to your side, thread your needles, and stitch your heart back together. If yours feels good but you know someone who could use some love, stitch one for them. Even if cross stitching is not for you, I sincerely encourage you to find one of the needle-arts that appeals to you and make something sweet and simple by hand this season.

This one, of every cross stitch kit I've ever designed, is probably the easiest. It's fairly small (the design area is about 9" wide by 6" high), fairly simple, doesn't have too many colors, and has elements that connect just enough to make counting fairly easy.

What is also nice about this, unlike almost every other cross stitch pattern I've ever designed, is that it can fit into a standard (8" x 10") frame. Wow, is it ever cheaper to frame things this way. What you can do is go to your local frame shop and ask them to cut you a piece of white foam core just slightly smaller than fits into a standard frame. (My local shop literally charged me $3.00 to do this.) You are going to wrap the fabric around this board, so you probably need the board to be about 1/8" shy, on every side, to make room for the fabric in the frame. Get some sequin (short, about 1/2") pins and follow my directions for stretching your finished piece here. Make sure that whatever frame you choose is deep enough to hold the foam core board and still put a backing on. I think that you could also get a frame shop to cover the back with paper and put hangers on it, if you did everything else (to keep costs down). And of course, a frame shop could do this whole thing for you but you would still save money not needing a custom-sized frame, because frames can be just ridiculously expensive.

Of everything else, we do have a pretty decent stock or none at all. Any kits that you do not see on the web site most likely will not be coming back, especially animal softies and ornament kits. I am probably going to bring back a limited supply of My Sweetiepie Sampler kits sometime in 2017, but it won't be anytime soon. I really, really want to make room in my brain and in my space for some new ideas and new kits in 2017.

We do ship overseas! To place your order, you will be required to read this information, which contains details about international shipping and customs fees you may incur when ordering outside the U.S. (If you are overseas, the shipping cost charged by Posie does not include any further charges you may incur when importing goods.) To see the shipping-only costs for your order and location, just place the items in your cart and choose your location (or enter your zip code, if you are in the U.S.) and it will tell you how much the shipping is. As usual, I have a sincere request: Please check on and update your shipping address correctly in your Paypal preferences so that there is no confusion when we go to ship. If you do need to add things to your order or change your address after you've placed the order, just email me and we'll figure it out, no worries! I just like to remind people of this ahead of time, because it's a bit easier.

There is something so poignant about holiday crafting, to me. I honestly think it's the sweetest, most optimistic kind of making we do all year. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to come from the heart. I hope this new little sampler kit provides you with many (but not that many; it's just the right size) quiet hours of peaceful stitching this season. And I wish you all the love and joy in the world.

Hello, dear friends. I hope you are very, very well at the end of this week. I've been mostly quiet in every way, trying to process the results of the election and find ways to think about it, listening to voices that I care about, and determined, as ever, to move forward into the future with an open mind and an open heart. On this day, Veteran's Day, I sincerely thank everyone who has served and given their lives to this great country and protected every extraordinary freedom that we get to so often take for granted. I thank every member of their families, as well, as their sacrifices are equally profound. I pray, as always, for peace and acceptance and understanding for all of us and for our children.

I'm extraordinarily tired today, and feeling flat. Daylight savings time, even this autumnal kind (in which we supposedly "gain" an hour), destroys our usual, mostly clockwork-like routine. I will never understand how one little hour can cause so much trouble. A couple of times this week, Amelia has woken up at 3:00 a.m., ready for her day. We've never been good at getting her back to sleep in her own bed after she wakes, so she comes in the big bed and then, and only then, she promptly falls asleep. I, on the other hand, lie curled around her warm body, limp as a towel on the floor except for my eyeballs, which are like that startled-looking, wide-eyed emoji guy's. Wide-awake. That, plus staying up talking way too late into the night for several nights, has got me fighting a cold I can feel coming on from somewhere far, far away. . . . I just know it's coming.

Out in the woods and in the meadow in the woods, all three of us, late last Friday afternoon. The air was so warm, the light was so mellow. There are too few of these golden days in Pacific Northwestern autumns, quite frankly, and we've had several just this week alone. What gracious balm they have been after the second-wettest October on record. On Sunday Andy had to work, and Mimi and I went out by ourselves, to a different forest on the other side of town. We brought a camp chair and a little quilt and walked to a secret viewpoint, across from which Mt. Hood rose glimmering-white in all its perfect, peaceful majesty. The woods were incredibly quiet. We only saw three other people, and one of them might have been the same guy twice (once on his way back). I sat in the chair, as per my dream of the woods. She sat facing me in my lap and we talked. Occasionally she'd put her head down on my chest and we'd just listen for birds. We heard hardly any, strangely, and no birds flew into the birdhouse ornament she'd brought from home (darn!). Sometimes we'd get up and walk again, leaving our base camp set up near the viewpoint. The woods had been muddy until we got into the pine forest. There the path is soft and dense and pinkish, and the smell of cedar comforts. Mushrooms sprouted and sat, so delicately, on pads of loamy leaves. Sticks cracked softly under our feet. Piles of acorn (?) shells at the base of several trees had us wondering. We practiced not shrieking in the woods (this has been hard to learn, but I sympathize there; it's so tempting). But I think quiet is best-practice. Quietly sitting in a chair, listening, looking — this I like. I plan to do more of it. The chair had a strap so I could carry it on my back. When set up it was only a foot off the ground, so I felt like part of the ground. Hiking is nice; sitting and watching her play her afternoon away with acorn shells and pine cones and pieces of fairy food (feathers, and mushroom gills) without getting soaking wet, now, those were some glorious hours. Highly recommend.

Peace be with you, friends. I hope you get to do something you truly love to do this weekend. We have finished all of the assembling and will be putting my new winter cross-stitch kits (and pattern) on sale on Tuesday, I think, so I will see you then, and wish you well until. Lots of love, XO, A

Few words, lots of feels. I stood on the other side of the one-way-glass window and watched her dance and was filled with so much joy for her obvious joy I couldn't speak, embarrassed by my tears in front of the other moms. She tried to curtsy, crossing her feet and falling over sideways, smiling. It's so beautiful sometimes I am overcome. How incredible to have a piece of one-way glass behind which to stand, and watch, and not be observed, and, so, not distract. She waved right at me and someone said, "But how can she see you?" I said I had no idea, and instinctively almost ducked. Later she told me she could see the shadow of my glasses, and I had told her I'd be standing right there. The music was poignant. The afternoon outside glowed. The little girls were birds in their nests, birds flying, and butterflies. In the hallway, the older dancers gossiped loudly and were shushed. The paint in the clothes-changing room was such an incredible barely pink shade of pink I touched the wall. Sometimes I have these moments in parenthood where I just can't believe I am finally a mother, and the air changes color. This week it was frequently pure gold. If you're still waiting, don't give up.

Late-October glow. We go to pumpkin patches and ride hay wagons. I forget what the birds sound like over the fields in the early mornings until this, this one early morning per year that I'm here. Our house sits so squarely, so solidly within the grid of our neighborhood that I can't ever see the sunrise or the sunset for all the houses and trees. Especially in the fall, I long for the farm-fields and furrows. We drive north, to Sauvie Island: It's our annual pumpkin-patch morning with dear friends and their darling children. The fields are slick with mud. The pumpkins are past their prime, and threaten to collapse at any moment. The fog lingers, then lifts, and leaves: It's perfect. The kids squat and pull tiny worms from the ground, having a long, private toddler conversation we can't hear. We get kettle corn and carving kits and caramel apples and, afterward, we all go down to the brewpub for lunch, and I wish that every day could be this one.

Mimi requests a purple fairy princess costume. I flail my way around long pieces of polyester chiffon, wrap pipe-cleaner-crown braids with ribbon and roses, iron sheets of cellophane over soft wire wings with every type of joy I know. How long I've waited to love Halloween! She wears her costume to school on a Tuesday. I am delightedly shocked to pick her up at 1:00 to find that she is still wearing it. Wings crooked, flower crown low on her forehead, it's all held up well but for one small rip in the front of the gown, and her eyes are bright with excitement. With the school, on Wednesday, we go to another pumpkin patch. It's so muddy that I, with my reconstructed foot, can't walk on anything but the most-dry, mostly flat surfaces, trying with all my might not to face-plant in front of the entire preschool while carrying an enormous camera. I photograph them all bumping along on the hayride, Mimi waving and Andy smiling wildly. The teachers' and parents' faces are as joyous as the children's. How sweet it all is. The rain holds off and the preschoolers run around the play area. Mimi darts and races, shrieking with glee, her usual language of happiness. Riding the mini-carousel, she waves and rocks and wants to go around again. Later, four of them sit in the dried-corn sandbox, running their hands through bright-yellow kernels and I know they'd happily sit there for ages, if only it weren't almost time to go. How grateful I am to be here, listening to their voices in the corn maze and watching geese fly low overhead.

This weekend, we're hosting the neighborhood pumpkin-carving party. I've spent this afternoon making my dad's chili and chicken-with-wild-rice soup, listening to Pavement radio on Pandora with the back door flung open. It's sunny again. I remember a conversation I had with my dad the October before he passed away. He was telling me about a Halloween party he and my mom had gone to years before, before I was born. "What did you go as?" I asked him. "A secret agent," he said and we giggled, and I was filled with a sadness I could hardly bear to feel. Our neighbors are our friends, and they'll walk over with beers, bread, and salads on Sunday. Ten adults, nine kids, one baby. Along with the chili and soup, I'm making hot-dog mummies, spider-topped English-muffin pizzas, apple monsters, and pumpkin cupcakes for the kids. I need to figure out what I'm going to carve on my pumpkin. I hope I have enough bowls. I can't wait to have everyone here.

Sparkle and blur, everything rushing by. The days spin past me and I only slow to cook or knit, and, even then, I knit like the wind, finishing entire sweaters that I haven't stopped long enough to put on Ravelry; I can't now remember what the patterns were called or what yarn I used or which needles, though they were finished just weeks, days, minutes ago. Should knitting be done so quickly? On Tuesday, Stacey kindly, kindly helped me reorganize my baking and dry-goods cabinet, emptying mason jars that had been filled with expired flours and grains; hand-washing everything in scalding, soapy water; wiping down shelves and lining up jars (again) like good little soldiers, waiting for me to cook. It worked: I was inspired. It was nice to move the enormous cast-iron Dutch oven three feet higher on the shelves so that I didn't feel like I was breaking my back every time I wanted to make soup but first needed to collect that monstrous beast from (practically) off the floor. Things like this — such practical, obvious things on their surfaces — don't get done because in reality they require not just moving that one pot but actually, like, emptying and reorganizing and entire standing wardrobe of fifty pots, pans, and jars first. Many things like this have fallen to the way, way, wayside over the past four years. That's been okay for a while, but it's time to improve. Slowly I'm reclaiming the domestic territories from their chaotic, swirling depths. Shelf by shelf. Cabinet by cabinet. I impose order in the smallest of ways, facing out labels and sweeping every grain of rice off the floor. I have missed doing these things. Every little stitch, every re-stacked pile of cake pans, every leaking, flour-covered bag of flour emptied into a jar of flour helps restore order to this little corner, when so much in the outside world feels whipped up and wild and wearying. I never seem to have time to do the things that make things feel better.

Cold-weather cooking is preferred over summertime stuff, at least. Fresh tomatoes, heads of lettuce, and mountains of glistening berries delight almost everyone but usually make me feel overwhelmed and vaguely anxious. Give me gigantic pots of things that bubble and thicken. Let me chop piles of onions and carrots and and sweet potatoes, roots that have been waiting, buried in deep, dark soils, to be sweated and roasted and caramelized. Let me preheat ovens and strain gravies and grate Gruyere. Last weekend here was soooo stormy that we scrapped all plans for leaving the house. Amelia wanted macaroni and cheese for her birthday dinner. It didn't even occur to me to make it from a box. Cheeses bubbled and breadcrumbs crisped in their cast-iron skillet under the broiler. Alas, she hated it, and I didn't love it either (er, I made us both some Kraft spirals the next day), but it was great to make. (Luckily, Andy loved it.) On Sunday afternoon, inspired (as with so much) by Amy of Second and Edgemont, I roasted a chicken (using this recipe). It sat on a little bed of potatoes and carrots, and I made a baked rice dish with mushrooms and shallots from The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet in my little casserole pot. The whole meal pleased me so much and filled me with such a strange sense of satisfaction that I went to bed thinking about it all, and woke up thinking about it, too. I'm just realizing now that that might have been because we made stock overnight in the crock pot and the house, all night long, was filled with the scent of simmering bones and broth and bay leaves. I don't know. It all just felt good and made me happy. My people were fed. The kitchen was clean. The chicken was easy. Its deliciousness far exceeded my expectations and far outweighed the effort involved, and something about all of those things just felt like such a relief, like an actual, existential relief.

Like . . . yeah.

It's been a long time since cooking has made me happy.

Yesterday, Mimi and I stayed home almost all day. We lit every little lamp we could find. Our grocery-shopping trip was poorly timed, and we managed to venture out during the only fifteen minutes that rain was coming down in sheets. Back at home, she wound three skeins of yarn around every knob, drawer handle, chair leg, and table, making an living-and-dining-room-sized spiderweb of wool. I went into the kitchen and sliced up an entire kielbasa sausage — my first ever, how weird is that? For some reason I've just never had it before — and browned it in the (aforementioned) Dutch oven. I fished the (delicious!) kielbasa out to wait on a plate and threw in handful after handful of leeks, carrots, onions, and sweet potato cubes and let it all cook down until the house smelled like bliss. Lentils, tomatoes, Sunday's chicken stock, and a couple more hours of simmering turned into — I can still hardly even believe it — one of the best soups I've ever had. I can't even believe I just sort of made it up myself (after reading a few recipes and taking parts and pieces out of each of them) because I never cook without following a recipe quite literally. When Andy got home last night I was stepping on his heels like a corgi, so excited was I for him to try it. Still in scrubs, he ate two bowls. I went up to bed with a large smile on my face. He texted me: "It's so good!!!!! Sweet, smoky, even a touch tart." I wrote back immediately: "YES MY KITCHEN GAME IS STRONG LATELY!!!" I'm not sure I've thought, let alone said, much less written, anything even close to that in the last four years. Should you need to feel clever and capable one of these rainy evenings, try it.

In large Dutch oven, brown sausage in olive oil over medium heat until edges are crispy. Remove from pot and set aside, leaving drippings in pot. Add carrots, leeks, and onion and salt and sautee over medium heat for quite a while — 20 minutes or so — until all vegetables are golden and getting caramelized. Add garlic and sweet potato and cook another few minutes. Add lentils, tomatoes, and chicken stock and bring to a decent simmer. Cook for about an hour and a half, stirring occasionally, until lentils are tender. Return kielbasa to the soup and heat through. Add more stock if soup gets too thick for you, but I like it thick. You could definitely add kale to this — I had a bunch and forgot to put it in!

Serve with garlic bread.

Also: Thank you ever so much for all of your very kind comments on Mimi's party and birthday. She had such a great birthday week and so did we. Thank you for being so sweet — I really appreciate it. You are just so kind. XOXO. And for those who have asked, her invitations were from Minted and a lot of her party supplies were from Sweet Lulu.

Oh. My. Goodness. What a weekend it was. Amelia's fourth birthday party was a blast! I always love her birthday parties so much. We spent Friday getting ready, and I really love those party preparations. Saturday afternoon, when the doorbell started to ring, she got shy, but quickly rallied. She was serious about her cake and her presents. I literally could not get her to stop stabbing her cake with appetizer skewers and eating frosting off of them. (I had the food catered by Artemis Foods, and a better decision I doubt I have ever made, but I did make the cake myself.) She wanted a piece of that cake so bad. Once the cake was eaten she opened her presents (such lovely, lovely presents) and honestly, I have never seen her so focused. She's never really been particularly into stuff in general, so I'm guessing this age is when the fascination with specific toys really starts. It was pretty cute and quite fascinating to watch. Certain things she tossed over her shoulder before quickly moving on to the next present; certain things she was so captivated by that the world stopped, as far as she was concerned, and she sat off to the side and started playing while the party went on around her. (Musical birthday cards were, quite possibly, the sleeper hit of the day.) Grandma and Pops Paulson (Andy's parents) are in town from Chicago and their presence here, especially after getting to spend so much time together in Chicago and Wisconsin this summer, has always made Amelia's party weekend extra special. This time there are six whole days between her party and her actual birthday so it's gonna be one looooong celebration. I almost planned a friend birthday party in addition to her usual family party but it just didn't come together. With Halloween so close, and a neighborhood party scheduled, and a school thing, and a pumpkin-patch plan, and another pumpkin-patch plan, I think the partying will continue through the month, so it's cool with her.

Her birthday. Her birth day. I remember the evening she was born like it was yesterday. I remember the days in the hospital afterward, when it was just Amelia's birthparents and Amelia and Andy and me. Those were some of the most intense and incredible days of all of our lives, I expect. There were tears and laughter and courage and strength and honesty and beauty and intensity and just . . . total love. It was like we five were on our own mysterious, unnameable planet together, and it brings tears to my eyes to remember those days even now. How blessed we were to have them! How blessed we are, all of us, in all of this! I love the family that our open adoption has created. When everyone — birthparents, grandparents, birthgrandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings — is together, it is the best day of the year. And every year gets better and better. I find it almost impossible to talk about because I just cannot find the words to explain. Amelia is loved so thoroughly and by so many. She's only just beginning to understand exactly what that means. But when we are all together, the house is filled with joy and rings with laughter, and that she absolutely understands.

After everyone left, and I was so tired that I laid down on the living room floor. She came over and we made a picnic with the Buckley deer family and some party napkins. Clover trip-trapped over to see what we were doing and Andy (superstar) worked on the kitchen. We talked in quiet voices for ourselves and for the deer. We talked about the picnic, the party, the cake, and the people, and all the very sweet things we love.

Apple picking with Mimi, just the two of us, yesterday. The apples were high in the trees, and small. I love apple trees. The air was cool and dry, the noonday sun dusky and golden. After about an hour she said, "Mom, let's go home," and I had been thinking the exact same thing. The drive through the country was long and sweet. We talked and sang. We're almost never, ever home by 2:00 p.m., but yesterday we were. I peeled and chopped apples while she stirred in the sink and filled it with apple peels and mountains of dish-soap bubbles (a cheap thrill I encourage). Applesauce simmered on the stove. The house smelled like cinnamon. Today I bought an autumn door wreath, little fake red apples on dried grapevine. I knew she'd like it, and she does. It will remind me of yesterday. Xoxoxoxo.

Thaaaaaaaank you for all of your great comments on my last post. Because of them I decided to chill psychologically the way I was already, in spite of myself or my to-dos, chilling physically. It's taking longer than I thought it would to find my motivation to do my chores, or much of anything else, but I'm down with it. I am knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting! I can't believe how much I am knitting. Last weekend we went to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival with Amelia's birthgrandfather and -grandmother, who is a spinner and knitter. She made me the most gorgeous shawl for Mother's Day, using fiber from last year's festival that she spun and knit in lovely, natural shades. I need to take a photo of it, and luckily it's finally getting chilly enough that I'll be able to wear it soon. We've all gone to the festival together for the last three years, and though I don't often find yarn for myself there (there is more fleece than yarn available to buy, I think) I do come away so inspired. Sometimes I think I just want to do nothing but knit. I've been knitting so much I haven't even taken the time to photograph the things I have knit. This gorgeous, russety weather won't last, so there will be time (though perhaps no gorgeous, russety light).

About

My name is Alicia Paulsonand I love to make things. I live with my husband and daughter in Portland, Oregon, and design sewing, embroidery, knitting, and crochet patterns. See more about me at aliciapaulson.com